A - A Feminist Conversation With

The Word is Near You: A Feminist Conversation with Lindbeck By Amy Plantinga Pauw "As Christian feminist s provid e critiques of male writers and readers of Scripture, they do so not from the secure vantage point of infallible experi ence, but as fellow pilgrims in the faith. Within the framework provided by Christian readings of Scripture, this entails the acknowl edgmen t that those attack ing the sin of the patriarchal traditi on are themselves subject to error and sin." chance remark by a French instructor during my junior year of study at the Sorbonne has stayed with me. My fellow foreigners and I were repeatedly using the indicative in a certain subjunctive clause. Our teacher corrected us, noting that at present our usage was not standard French. But that may change, she added with a wry smile, "grace a' vous, peut-etre"-"thanks to you, perhaps." Because languages are living systems, the grammatical rules governing them are subject to change, sometimes even thanks to the practice s of outsiders. That remark has stayed with me partly because of George Lindbeck's provocative book The Nature of Doctri ne, where he advocates a cultural-linguistic model of religion focusing upon the shared language and practices of a religious community as the primary ground of religious experience. Lindbeck's suggestion that religious systems are like languages and their doctrines like grammatical rules for correct speech has received enormous and diverse response within theological circles. However, its implications for Christian feminism have received little attention. 1 This is unfortunate, in my view, because Lindbeck's " cultural-linguistic" approach offers largely untapped resources for reformist feminism. 2 In this essay, I will offer some preliminary reflections on the implications of Lindbeck's general approach for the use of Scripture in the Christian community as it pertains to women. Though in some sense they have been "insiders" to the faith from the beginning, women have been consistently marginalized within the Christian community, both overtly and subtly. In responding to this basic feminist insight, I will be exploring the dynamics of grammatical change and how the practices of women within the Christian community may require changes in the language of faith. My guide for this exploration is Amy Plantinga Pauw is Assistant Professor of Doctrinal Theology at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. 1 Lindbeck and his students have observed, for example, a conspicuous silence on feminist language issues. In this respect, as in others, Lindbeck is to be distinguished from other confessional Lutherans with an admiration for Karl Barth. 2 It will become clear that Lindbeck's approach is not helpful to revolutionary or separatist feminists, but only to those committed to reforming the Christian tradition within which they stand.

A - A Feminist Conversation With

Documents

Transcript of A - A Feminist Conversation With